


perhaps my chance was then, i'll never know

by alynshir



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, POV Second Person, bi morrigan, but then we bring it in for some comfort, hurt/comfort??, relationship focused, with an emphasis on the hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:01:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21919513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alynshir/pseuds/alynshir
Summary: in which there are three kisses, and in which many things are left unspoken, but not as much is left unsaid.
Relationships: Female Mahariel/Morrigan (Dragon Age), Mahariel/Morrigan, Morrigan/Female Warden
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hello i wrote this from like 2-5 am in the morning and went absolutely buckwild insane the entire time i was writing it please enjoy and let me know what u think!! the title is taken from "she lit a fire" by lord huron!

(the first time, they both tried to forget.)

"the bard, i understand," morrigan says, her voice silky, her voice sure, and you don't think she does understand at all, but neither do you, "but the assassin? do you have no sense?"

"what are you talking about?" you ask, and you can feel your hackles raising, your ears pressing back, you aren't used to feeling like this around her, and you see something venomous flicker in the flare of her nostrils, in the purse of her lips,  _ you think me a fool, you cannot think i'm blind, i know which tent you come from, i know who sleeps there, it isn't you _ \- and it takes you a moment to realize she hasn't said any of that at all, but she may as well have, 

"your... _dalliances_ ," she says, and you see the narrowing of her eyes,  _ as if you need me to say it,  _ "who is next, alistair? sten? the old woman?"

your lip curls back from your teeth, and you take a step towards her, so the firelight illuminates her, so you can better see just what she's saying,  _ are you shaming me, _ your eyebrows raise,  _ do you think so lowly of me for what i do or don't do?  _

"are you serious," you ask, incredulity flooding you from the vicious flutter in your chest to the tips of your furious hands, clenching, "of all things to be angry with me over," and she turns her head away from you, sour, jaw taut, crossing her arms, and oh, she's angry, but you don't understand -

"of course i am serious,  _ shay _ ," and she says your name with a nasty slant that you don't like, and don't like even more when you hear a rawness beneath it, an exposition, a  _ listen to me, you cannot be right in this, you cannot surely think this is acceptable _ , your blood starts simmering,

"nobody has time for this," she says, her eyes barely flicking to yours, the distance of firelight making them pale, cold, unfamiliar, "the blight is upon us, breathing down our necks, and you are here, moving from tent to tent with reckless abandon," and you absolutely cannot believe this, and your hands nearly smack onto your hips,

"and what the fuck do they have to do with each other?" you demand,  _ they have nothing to do with each other, life happens even during blights, you know this, we've seen it, where do you get off on this, _

"you had leliana's heart, and broke it, i saw her confront you," morrigan says, her arms dropping and one hand perching on her hip, the other slashing the air, and you have to bite back something explosive in the first language you speak, something your mind is moving too fast to translate,  _ you hadn't broken anything, you don't understand, you weren't there, it was a misunderstanding, _ "and now you have the assassin's, for whatever it's worth to you, and i simply wonder if you plan to enthrall them and then drive them all away before we reach the archdemon!"

"i haven't broken anyone's hearts," you exclaim, your voice leaping, "it's not like that!"

the way her eyes narrow, you know she believes not one word, nothing,  _ you're lying to me, you don't lie to me, i will not be made a fool,  _ she says in that sneer, that disdainful air you usually delight in, "don't be so sure, warden! do you not know how you act around them?"

"please, by the creators," you swear, an entendre invocation to elgar'nan to please, please calm the rising sense of betrayal you feel, betrayal by her, of all people, "illuminate me, morrigan!"

she moves towards you, the ground crackling beneath her, furious, appalled,  _ how are you so blind - _

"they look after you and dote on your every word! they blush and they whisper like schoolgirls!"

your arms drop to your sides, cut through the air, tense, hands snapping open with indignation,  _ you weren't there! you're wrong! you don't know -  _

"they absolutely do not!"

she lets out a laugh that almost hurts to hear the unbridled scorn in, and looks at you, livid, smiling in a way others would say serpentine, you know better,

"you don't see it!" she says, "you're too busy getting to know them," her voice drips with a derision your ears flinch at,  _ do you think that little of me, _ you say, to no avail, "you're too occupied with -" she stutters, searching, and a seething little thought occurs to you, "with listening to them talk about their mothers, or their fathers, or their lovers, and all their tragic histories! there is a blight to focus on!"

"are you jealous?" you say, moving closer, cocking your head, your mouth tugging into something crooked, something joyless, her eyes widen,

"jealous?! i am no such thing," but oh, you're not done, you're moving closer, a horrible honey of a laugh coating your tongue,

"do i not ask you enough about your mother? if i recall, we spent a good long while talking about your mother," and the honey has gone sour, gone rancid, gone furious as any surprise, any momentary humor is gone, and suddenly you're back to being furious, fucking furious,

"this is  _ not _ about me," she says, trying to look away from you, but you're nearly up in her face now,  _ you're not going to get out of this now, look me in the eye, you have things to say, say them - _

"are you shitting me? are you seriously wasting my time by yelling about who i'm sleeping with?!" you can feel your heart racing, you can see every trace mote of peridot in her golden eyes, you can see the frustration in each line of her snarling face, "you can just say what you mean!"

"i  _ am _ saying what i mean!" she shouts, facing you again, and you're practically forehead to forehead, and you've been close to her before in calmer moments, but it hasn't been like this, and your head is spinning, and your heart is hammering with rage, with, with,

"fuck you, no you're -"

and then you're kissing her, or maybe she's kissing you, you don't know, you don't know, you don't know anything because her hands are holding your face with a vengeance, with a desperation you can taste, a desperation that's suddenly all you are, all you feel, you pull her closer, your hands are in her hair, pull her closer, she needs to be closer, there is nothing but her, you feel everything with a loudness you can't even begin to fathom, her hands are ragged, clutching, scratching against your cheeks, her lips crush against yours and you need them to, every time they do you feel electric, you need to feel it more than you need to breathe, you don't know what she's saying and you don’t know if she cares anymore, the way the quiet, savage little sound curls from her that you don't hear so much as you feel on your lips, you need that sound suddenly, you need it more than you've ever needed anything, you don't know if she's saying anything or if you're saying anything, you don't know, you don't even know what she tastes like because you don't know anything, you've never known anything because morrigan is kissing you - or you're kissing her, or maybe both -

and then she rips away from you, a sharp gasp escaping from her as she nearly stumbles a few steps away from you as if shoved, you can't even do that, breathe, she takes all the air with her, your chest is burning, you feel on fire and doused with cold all at once, and then you see her, eyes wide, darker than you've ever seen them, loose tangles of hair falling around her face, unsure, twisted with something - something that’s been hidden beneath the shattering of her scorn, something  _ vulnerable _ , and you're moving forward towards her, you don't know what you're doing -

_ what are you doing,  _ "what," she starts, her voice hoarse,

and she's backing away, barely, as if half-resisting herself, and you feel an awful twist in your stomach, "um," you hear yourself say, then you're turning away, you can't look at her, you can't see the way you feel her looking at you, blood pounding in your ears with all nerve, no rhythm,

you're nearly running back to your tent, back to the safety of a campfire that doesn't make her eyes glow like that, like you've quietly watched them do for months, you hear her moving away with purpose like yours,

(the first time, they both tried to forget. but of course, they didn't. how could you forget something like that?)


	2. Chapter 2

(the second time, the memory of it didn't plague. it was worse that way.)

the night before had been long, a night that had dragged itself out like a bad dream, nothing but quiet, a strained kind of quiet, not the kind of quiet you like, but it's because you'd been desperate for it, sitting watching the candle burn down, knowing what you'd agreed to and unable to shake  _ the thought, your brother-in-arms and your whatever she is, she's more than you can title her _ , you'd agreed; she'd asked with more words than you'd needed and doesn't she know she could have asked for anything and it wouldn't have changed your answer? so she'd asked, you'd said yes, and she'd gone to find him, and you'd sat there, trying not to think about it, watching the wax melt and wondering if -  _ no _ , and watching the firelight fade and thinking if -  _ no _ , you'd felt a cool hand gently touch your shoulder,

and you hadn't needed to look to know it's her, but, you'd wanted to look, and besides, she stays with you now, even though you've never discussed it - it being whatever that had been, before -, it's as if it'd never happened but you know it happened and you can't imagine she's forgotten, but, and,

she'd said nothing as she'd crossed between you and the hearth to sit beside you on the bed that'd been said to be yours but it had never mattered on the road and doesn't matter now because her presence had become a relief and then a given. your fingers had twined together with hers, as they do nowadays, sometimes for you to know she's there, sometimes for her to know the same without saying anything, and she'd been trembling, a bit, and you had looked at her, met her eyes, eyes flickering like twin firelights, with as much softness, as much comfort as you have left in your chest to give, it'd always been for her anyway, and she'd said nothing, and she hadn't had to, you could feel it in the shiver of her skin against yours, in the uneasiness, the justification, the attempt at self-reassurance riddling her like arrows and she'd just barely leaned into you with the faintest whisper of a sigh and you'd squeezed her hand tight and she'd squeezed back and you hadn't said anything but you'd stayed there until she'd dozed off leaning into you,

oh, do you wish the night had decided that right there had been the time to drag on, but no, morning had come too quickly, and now here you are, standing in the first city you've ever been in and possibly the last, and you know what she said, you can't stop thinking about what she said she'd do after she saw this through.

it haunts you as she stands aside, waiting her turn, waiting to speak last, as your friends tell you how much you are to them and it makes you feel full and viciously empty, mourning early because your luck, your luck, you will lose them, 

you hold leliana's hands and she tells you she'll be cross with you if you don't return, your heart cracks and splinters, you've never had a friend like her, you say, you hold her hands so tightly and she holds them back, her eyes insistent, shining, bright, she believes in you, you feel it and she says it anyway, you say you are so thankful for her and you mean that,

alistair at first doesn't know how to look at you and you don't know how to look at him and neither of you know why but then he's folding you into his arms and you're clinging to him for dear life and even through the armor you can hear his heart racing and he can hear the ragged breaths you take against his chest and he tells you whatever comes, knowing you was one of the greatest honors he'll ever have, you call him brother in words he doesn't understand, he calls you sister in words you do, he gives you a little grin and makes some joke about how when this is over he'll dance the merigold in celebration, and you laugh, and then have to swallow to pretend you're not about to cry,

zevran is smiling with shadows under his eyes when you approach, but he sees you and immediately calls you his dearest and most darling friend and tells you not to cry, for you will simply be too beautiful for him to resist wooing, and thank the creators for him because he lets you scoff and then he's playing wounded, and then under that he's smiling, softer, more real, and that's your zevran, that's the man you trusted with a part of yourself you'd been scared to look at and who had never betrayed that trust even when it had burned to hold at first, he says  _ onward _ , and holds your hand in both of his and says after this, you will come with him to the darkest gems of antiva and know true revelry, true reward, you don't have the heart to tell him you won't,

because when everyone else has spoken and it's her turn, she, she....

it's almost too casual, not important enough as people idle in the background and swords slide into sheaths and orders are given and accepted, it's too small even as morrigan, witch of the korcari wilds, tells you with steadfast eyes shielded and still shimmering, that in no uncertain terms how she's never known anyone like you and never knew she would find a true friend - oh, the word burns like it shouldn't - in you, she tells you to live gloriously but you can't hear this goodbye any longer, because that's what she's saying even when she uses different words, you see it in the sadness in her eyes, goodbye, goodbye, and she stops and it doesn't feel like enough, and then she asks you what you want from her because you're staring and she's said her piece, but before she can say anything else you're talking over her, 

"i know you're going to leave," and the words are coming out like river rapids, your voice is trembling more than it should, "i'm coming with you, i'm not losing you like this," 

and she's shaking her head, but you are too, "you won't be alone to do this, i want to come with you, i don't care where you're going, let me come with you, please, i," and you're tripping over these words you'd thought about so carefully, and one of her hands has found yours, even here in front of everyone, and you know they're not looking in theory but you'd be looking if it weren't you,

"please," you say, and you've never begged for anything in your life but you'd get down on your knees and pray to the maker if it'd make her stay, you feel your eyes burning, with tears, with desperation, as she looks at you for a long moment, her eyes burning too, you can't feel that but you can see them shining too brightly,

"please," and you see, if only for a flash of a moment, her heart crack and splinter too, and then, 

and then she's kissing you, right there, in front of everyone who isn't looking and everyone who is, and this is different than it was last time; her free hand touches your face with a gentleness so soft, so hesitant it hurts, and the world falls away then, everything goes quiet and it's if the world has forgotten everyone else but you and her as her hand cups your face with tenderness no one in the world save you gets to know she has, one of you has tears running down their cheeks as she kisses you, and you're leaning up into her, you need to be closer to her, your hands clutch desperately, desperately to her shirt, as if it will make her stay, as if, but you need it to; the last time this happened you didn't know anything and now you feel like you know too much, and now you know that if this ends it's over, and you don't want it to be, it can't be; she's kissing you and she tastes like salt and like sorrow and like the faintest hint of jasmine and cedar and it's the only thing you want to know about, you cling to her like smoke but then again, again, she pulls away from you, her forehead resting against yours, she's still holding you close, your breath is coming in short, awful little gasps, and you realize you're both to blame for the tears and her nostrils flare dangerously and she leans in and kisses you again, softer, and again,  _ i'm sorry, _ and you feel yourself sob against her lips then because you know what she's going to say and you don't want to hear it,

"no," she says, and that's all, and then she releases you, her hand unwinding from yours, the crumpled fabric of her shirt falling from your fingers as she releases you, and you don't stumble but you fall anyway,

and it doesn't even matter when you kill the archdemon because it's over then, and you wake up only to find a vacancy, and a ring clutched and folded into the palm of your hand as if pressed there and sealed with a promise you don't remember, a promise you'll keep or break, whichever will atone for losing her and whichever will let you find her again,

(the second time, the memory stayed anyway, and it was worse that way, because it lingered)


	3. Chapter 3

(the third time, it's really more like the first time, and they don't mind.)

it's hard to believe she's here, actually, or maybe it's harder to believe that you're here, that after all this time, which really objectively hasn't been that long at all, you've found her, you've found her, and she's standing as tall as she always has, a sight for your tired, tired eyes in front of a mirror that's entirely too familiar.

"come no closer," she says, and you could die a thousand deaths and still do it all over again to hear the voice you've missed desperately for nearly a year, and you've never missed a voice before, never longed to hear anything but the wind in the trees and the quiet world around you, but she's different, or maybe it's more like she's always been just the same, just like you, the only person you've ever met who's been part of the world you trust implicitly,

"come no closer," she says, again, and you see her as if for the first time now; the last near of a year has changed you both. your hair has grown longer yet still, the framing pieces of hers curl longer past her chin, she is more tired than you remember, you have more scars and she has more freckles and you see her eyes tracing them, you see her noticing them and committing them to memory just as you do the same, and you meet her eyes and you hear her let out a sharp, long, sigh under her breath, one you know, one that you nearly cry with relief to know, one of relief, of consternation, of worry, relief, relief, and you know what she said, but you take a step closer, and she takes the smallest half-step back.

morrigan. you'd tried not to think her name, early on, and almost immediately it hadn't worked but you'd still tried, and to think it unfettered is freeing in itself. 

"one more step, warden, and i leave, for good this time," she says, her voice hard, but you know better, and for all the days it has been since you last have seen her, you still know better than to believe this face-value from her, and you hear the truth in the hesitation before she says 'for good', in the catch of her voice on the second syllable of your title, you hear _i'm sorry, it has to be this way, i'm sorry to lead you here only for it to be this way, it has to be, i'm sorry._

she tells you in grand, overarching, much too vague words where she's been and what she's done, in a way where she doesn't tell you much of anything at all, and it's almost background for the both of you as you both drink each other in in that way you both do, both have done, in that way that's easiest for both of you. she's always understood you in that way - there's more to know in what you see than in what you say, you've believed, and so much of you and her has remained unspoken. but you see it anyway, you see the weariness in her eyes and a strange, ferocious softness that you recognize like an old friend but that doesn't quite belong to you anymore, or perhaps doesn't belong just to you anymore, 

-as if you'd ever forget.

"the child," you say, and that's all you have to say because she looks away so sharply you know you've understood her perfectly,

"what about him," she asks, and you can't stop the little smile that curls its way onto your lips, the little flicker of joy,

"him," you repeat, and you see her eyes glow with a deeper, brighter cousin of that same joy,

"him," she says, "he's," and she closes herself off, or tries, "he's safe, and far away from here," and you see the faintest flutter in her throat and you know he can't be far, you know morrigan (and you know now how she didn't leave your side for a week after the defeat of the archdemon, how they didn't think you'd wake from your injuries and she'd refused to leave as she'd said until you'd half-woken and looked at her like she'd hung the moon and stars in the sky and promptly forgotten and fallen into a safer sleep, only then had she left, only then had she left after knowing you were safe and knowing you lived as you should), you know morrigan would not dare leave her son - her son! - out of her reach,

"do not follow me," she says, turning away as if you won't see her jaw tightening, as if you won't notice the shine in her eyes, in those eyes colored like the twilight hour, you've missed them, you've missed her, you can't lose her again, you take a step forward, she turns, eyes widening,

"you listen," you say, and your voice doesn't shake like it did last time, and you step closer again, and she doesn't move, doesn't flee, and you knew she wouldn't, "you listen to me. i am coming with you," and she starts to shake her head but you interrupt it, "i am coming with you, and i don't care how dangerous it is, i don't care where it is, i don't care what all this is about, i care, but not in any way that will stop me from following where you go,"

"shay," she says, and her voice is raw, "please, it is -"

"no," you say, and you step closer still, and you see her eyes flick towards the mirror, but she doesn't flee, doesn't flee, and your heart is drumming faster than it ever has, "i'm coming with you, to whatever end, and i love you, and i don't care where this goes, i don't care that this mirror scares the shit out of me, i don't care that i'm leaving behind everything i've ever done, you know it's never mattered like that to me, and i -" and you can't speak for a moment and your mouth is dry and for a terrifying moment you think she'll take the opportunity and run, and be gone, and you'll never see her again, but she doesn't, she doesn't,

she steps towards you, the tiniest motion, and you're shaking a bit but it's not like last time, you're not here to beg her to let you, you're not here to ask,

"i love you," you say again, and you see it hit her for the first time that you've said it, that thing you've both been dancing around for years now, "i love you, and i've loved you, and i love you, and i'm coming with you."

and then she doesn't say anything, and you don't say anything, and you're close enough to touch her, she's close enough to touch, but you don't, and she doesn't,

and then she smiles, just a little bit, and then it grows, _really_ , she asks, like that, _are you serious, truly_ , in that language you'd worried you'd grown rusty in, and _of course really_ , you say, with a lift of your eyebrows, with the faintest return of a smile, and you see she tries to press her lips together to keep it down, but she can't, and creators, maker, lady of the skies, there is nothing more beautiful, there is nothing you've ever seen that could measure up to the smile that blooms on morrigan's face. 

and then she closes the profanity of space between you, finally, finally,

and this time when she takes your face in her hands and kisses you, you know just enough, and you can feel her smiling against your lips, and you can’t stop smiling either, your hand settles on her waist, closer, your arm looping around her neck, closer, but not out of desperation this time, this time you pull her close out of relief, out of joy, out of love, you love her, you love her, and you didn't need to say it, but you did, and she could never say it for the rest of your days if she didn’t want to but you'd still know by the way she kisses you, gentle, smiling into you, and your chest feels so full of sunshine that you think you could fly if she'd asked it of you, and she pulls back, but this time only to look at you, only to look at you in a way you can nearly hear her mocking herself for already, so you lean up and kiss her again before she thinks too hard about it. when you pull away you can see she's all but forgotten to scorn herself.

"come then, my love," she says, so quietly, so quietly, as if for nothing and no one in the world to hear but you, and her hand finds yours, as it has, as it should, as it does, and she leads you towards the mirror, the eluvian, to whatever awaits beyond, and part of you is terrified, and your fingers tighten around hers reflexively as you approach the mirror and she traces her free hand across its iridescent surface, but the part that counts doesn't care, especially when she looks back at you.

"the mirror is no danger," she says, "it is uncorrupted, and i remind you who you are, and who you are with," she says, her lips curling into a crooked, sly smirk, her chin lifting, but you see past the familiar arrogance, the familiar pride, and you see nothing but protectiveness, but belief, but a pure, shining joy as she takes you in, as she looks at you,  _ i love you,  _ she says, like that, for only you to see, for only you -

you follow, you follow, you would follow her anywhere. so you have already, and so you do.

**Author's Note:**

> my DA twitter is @witchesgonewild pls come follow me for more of this content but in tweet-screaming form. all i do is talk about dragon age literally like all the time come hang out w me


End file.
